Thousands of Eyes, Regards Aside / Thousands of Faces, Withdrawn, Lowered / Thousands Of

THE EXCLUDED

Thousands of eyes, regards aside / Thousands of faces, withdrawn, lowered / Thousands of hands reached through the grid /To pray, to plead,to ask for help / We cannot see. / Thousands of eyes, thousands of faces, thousands of hands reached through the grid /

(we leave it up to the others) / To those who knot / To those who can / To those who want / We do not want./ Thousands of eyes, thousands of faces, thousands of hands reached through the grid / Only heart does not comprehend and blood keeps oozing.

We close our eyes to problems that do not regard us directly. However social exlusion can touch each of us who, in a sense, does not fit in social norms. What if I have a disabled child? (Marek)

We overlook suffering of those who have found themselves on the edge of society, we excuse it by a lack of time and patience. From time to time we please our egos by a charity contribution but that is the very end of our activity. For all who help people standing outside the society get back. (Ondra)

The artificially made illusion of beauty and socially acceptable look presented in the media make us exclude what is different, what is unpretty. „Look how pretty he/she is. Everything must be easier for him/her.“is what always shocks me. Worse is that it is true. The illusion that beauty brings us happiness is pretty insecure though firmly embedded in human minds. „...it´s not his fault, he was born like that... you think, fortunately it wasn´t me... forget prejudice, beauty is elsewhere... regarless your fear help them get out of cages. – LAHAR (Martin)

„...the beautiful totality of the individual is not amputated, suppressed or confused by our social system, but the individual is carefully made according to the total policy of forces and bodys.“ MICHEL FOUCAULT – SUPERVISE AND PENALIZE ... it is easier to let the system take care, not to worry and be just a part of a machine which jams as no spare parts exist. (Honza)

JACK-O´LANTERNS

We´re standing in the middle of a deep forest / Sunrays don´t shine through shadows (of houses) / You won´t see stars at night / Just blue television dark / I loathe the consequences / I weep... won´t extend my hand / I´m not scared / I´m just sorry / I can´t break it (I don´t want to?!) / I loathe and I´m sorry / For you / For me...

About shadows with shopping bags in their hands. About shadows that keep erring. The homeless are not a problem of a small group of unadaptable people as we are often said. There is only a narrow border between content middle-class life and sheer fall onto the social bottom. (Marek)

Sometimes I am given ready-made opinions. This is good, that is bad. Black. White. It can be even worse in case I am not aware of being in this position. It is an everyday fight between the laziness of conformity and willingness to analyze a problem from different angles. Never want I condemn you without trying putting myself into your shoes and I regret possibly doing it. For all who have found themselves on the edge of abyss (society, culture, subculture... our minds...) just due to tradition and/or prejudice. (Honza)

I don´t like judging people unless knowing them personally... you must have heard a similar conversation thousands of times: -That is a real bastard! –How do you know? Do you know him? – No, but he is said to be! Most people have qualities as well, so why should we always see what is bad? Even that bastard can help when you are cut up. For all to whom traducement or envy destroyed something beautiful or who were afterwards exculded from society. (Ondra)

I WISH THEY WOULD UNDERSTAND

You fingers are bleeding as you clench your fists / Persuaded, chosen, yourself, by yourself / Weeknesses, hopes, dreams / Are the stairs you are climbing / As a ladder up to the stars / Made of broken dreams./ What you are taking is not yours / Your success is not yours / Betrayed you betray / You betray others to betray yourself.

About losing ideals. About losing faces. Just in the others´ eyes, never in our own ones. About pockets full of lies. (Marek)

To keep one face we lose another one. We hide our opinions not to show up, we prefer repeating to fit in and not to be seen much. We hold back our feelings as we are afraid to show them... there is nothing to be ashamed of...! (Ondra)

About one of the hardest life´s fights. About the endless fight with human ego.... (Martin)

If I lie to you, I lie to myself as well. It´s easy, but it´s like building a house from paper cards. Just a single careless movement,a single blow from outside may make it all fall down. I can possibly start all over again but some cards may be damaged and break at every other try. One day I´ll find out that there is nothing to lean on. Not even myself. (Honza)

WITHOUT DIRECTION

Every step I take is aside / Lost in a one-way road I´m looking for a direction to také / Standing on a crossroad of dead-ends aware that they both have one aim / But what I´m losing is sense / We all long for one aim / Want to hold your hand, no I don´t want to know direction

Closing my eyes I walk along a dead-end.

These lyrics are very personal,they were written in a period which wasn´t easy for me. It´s about priorities that we make clear every day. Several times I was forced to face myself, what I imagine and want and what really exists. Lyrics I sing are about that – about unfulfilled expectations and misunderstood signs. And about hope, because will and determination can change lots of things. I know that. (Marek)

Dreams are the only thing I have. I look after them, I don´t remove my look from them and so I can´t see my way. And as I firmly hold them in my hands, I sometimes cut myself on them. The pain gets so stinging at times that I feel like smashing them with my bleeding fist not to hurt me any more. But what else would I have then? Just scares and a pool of blood in the sand. (Honza)

We all have our own dreams, ideas that we would like to make true, that we would like to live, but it is not always possible. We must distinguish what we want from what is achievable. If we don´t we can hurt ourselves as well as people around. (Ondra)

I still don´t know what I want to do in life, what I want to devote myself to, who and what I want to love, who and what to dedicate my life to. As if I was walking along a dead-end and knew there was a wall I would hit. Hitting the wall is the worst end I can imagine. „Total dark, hands touching the walls and feet carefully shuffling towards the wall. The effort to rise my head and look at the stars is always unsuccessful. Waiting to see the sky one day, reach a hand, before hitting the wall standing at the end...“ And hoping that a hand comes as soon as possible. (Martin)

MY NAIVETY SHALL BE MY FORCE

On the other side – I don´t want to die young (and don´t want to let my youth die) / I don´t want to live out of past, (I believe, know) that you can find a lot in a little / (I believe, know) that even from a lack (of inspiration) a sparkle can rise and light a fire (we are all waiting for)

I do not believe in unity / I want to believe in hormony / And my naivety shall be my force.

Since I got into hc punc community I have heard x definitions of what is and what is not punk. All the metal free and emo free tip-offs, teasing sxe and non-sxe kids, rockers and old schoolers and similar fractions... I should say how I am fed up with it but I am not, in fact I enjoy it. Because I know that despite all our differences we can find a common way in many things and cooperate and that is one of the reasons I keep calling myself PUNK. I don´t believe we could ever be unified, I stuff unity, what I am fond of is cooperation and learning from differencies... (Marek)

I don´t care about labelling and I will never understand why some people keep thinking about criteria of what is or is not hc/punk. I don´t care whether you eat meat or not, whether you drink or whether you are a militant sxe. I stuff x´s on your hands, vegan tatoos, I don´t wonder whether you´re Christian or Buddhist... I wonder what kind of person you are, not what kind of badges and T-shirts you wear...!!! HC is in people, not in music or clothes. We can be united only if we are able to tolerate other people. Instead of fighting emo or metal, you´d better fight your dullness and stupidity. (Ondra)

I CANNOT BE YOUR FULFILLED DREAM

I´ m not a numer / I´m not a brand / I´m not a component / I´m not your fulfilled dream althought I love you almost as much as myself

I cannot be your fulfilled dream athough I love you amost as much as myself.

Expectations hurt, we are not what other people want us to be. Thousands of times I have disappointed my parents and friends about myself, but I couldn´t help it. I can´t manage to be the person others want me to be. I tried, I can´t. This is not en excuse, because excusing one´s nature would be silly (at least in my eyes).

Dedicated to all those who differ and shamelessly show their differences to this fucking society full of prejudice. Dedicated to all gay and lesbian activists. (Marek)

When Sputnik got in orbit a teacher asked her pupils to write a poem on this topic. A kid wrote: „The stars are so big. The Earth is so small. Stay what you are.“ (Honza)

I don´t want to pretend anything just to fit in somewhere. I want to live my life according to myself, to my rules, to what I feel that is right or wrong and not to what someone tells me. It´s the only way I can live a free and happy life. (Ondra)

Disappointing people I like is as painful as disappointing myself. Often it is much more painful. I know that I have made many decisions that hurt people I liked a lot. I also know that their pain was hard. I wasn´t able to fulfill their expectations, pleading regards full of fear and hopes concentrated in my person... They don´t even know how I´d love to accomplish these expectations if only I could, but I cannot. I am different and even if I wanted to, I couldn´t be such a person they would like me to be. It hurts twice, terrible anguish. Desire to fulfill other people´s wishes about me against desire to be free, to achieve my own image of life. There´s no other choice, I choose the second way. I hope to make the same decision in all my future life, it´s the only way to stay aware of living my own life. It could seem the worst – hope to hurt others. It is not, because what I hope even more is that they will understand one day and will be happy just at seeing me happy. More than hope, I believe it. It is my (weak) consolation now when I make such decisions... (Martin)

F. XX.

Standing there I obeyed / Without will nor dignity / In a uniform of wingless angels / There was nowhere to fly anymore / Name and face have become letter and numbers / My destiny can be processed statistically / While losing her mid she lost herself (in her eyes) / Will is not important to her anymore. / Rules tell her what to do / Each day is firmly Schedule / Confusion makes hopelessness when helping hands punish

The international classification of illnesses marks mental illnesses with letter F and a number code expressing concrete diagnosis (e.g. schisophrenia has F.20). These lyrics are about losing dignity known by a large number of patients in big psychiatric hospitalment homes. Firmly scheduled days regardless to personal wish or will remind more of prison than soul therapy. Sure, there are alternatives, community services are becoming more and more numerous but mental ilness keeps facing Middle Ages prejudice like fools should be enclosed behind high walls and bound in straightjackets or doped with strong medicaments (both have the same effect). It is important to start discussing this problem, to explain facts concerning prejudice against mental ilness and start working on the whole society healing. It all sounds very pompous, I know, but on the other hand, every change begins from the bottom – in this case, from community. (Marek)

During an infamous sociology experiment a couple of experimentors with false diagnoses made themselves hospitalize in various psychiatric hospitalment homes. From the very beginning they behaved as in their common lives. However people around them found non-standard meanings in their standard behaviour. All participants were sooner or later released from the establishments with diagnoses of various forms of schizophrenia. Some of them also with serious psychological consequences as they really started to doubt about their own sanity. Only the act of branding a human as something (labelling, marking) has immense strenght, however we label someone insane, man, woman, gay, lesbian, good-hearted, bastard or anything else. But are we so easily storable to get into pigeon-holes? Can we be defined by a code? (Honza)

I refuse to classify people according to sexual orientation, mental abilities etc. Does a homosexual, a mentally disabled person have lesser right to life, love, happiness? (Ondra)

Just... read One flew over the Cuccoo´Nest by K. E. Kesey or watch the film made by M. Forman. (Martin)

We recorded theses songs together and live during one march afternoon our rehersal room. First songs of our band, first results of us working together - of our friendship. We think this is the beginning of a journey, the journey we started together and we still want to make it together. We recorded this on our own and we made the cover on our own – our work is based on DIY principles. It’s not just the part of our journey – it’s the direction we walk. We thank to everyone who joined us on this journey even just for a moment. Our thanks go to all who crossed ways of our lives. If you want, stream our music, copy it, tape it, burn it … dance, sing, live!

Lakmé is and will always be Ondra on drums, Marek on microphone, Martin on bass and Honza on guitar. Drbik lended us the mix for recording. The cover photo was made by Ondra and the one from our rehersal room by our friend – also Ondra. Introduction by Jean Paul Sartre (Paris, 1945). If you wanted to talk with us about anything, just come or write to . You can find cyberLakmé on but you should better come to a gig.

Come and tell or ask us whatever you want. Because thats the reason why we are doing this. We want to initiate a discussion, to do something which will be followed by a reaction. Be it positive or negative. We want to communicate and speak about everything. Because its the only way how to move forward, how to build relationships for which we have regards. The way how to have regards for ourselves and for the others. Thats the reason why we are standing here, screaming and hitting the instruments which we actually cant play, because we are not artists and we dont want to be artists. We are just four friends beating our frustrations by playing music. Lakme is a punk band. Music has never been number one for us. Its just a way of selfprogression, a way how to scream and say something. An issue which is important for us are our lyrics and mainly the way, how we are doing all this shit. The way how we live, how we treat each other, how we are presenting the band, how we make songs together these thing have the biggest importance for us. This is more important than the art of writing song or lyrics. Its our lives and they are weapons how to show that there is something wrong in this world so we try to be different. Lakme is our chance to cooperate and prove it is possible. To prove, there can be an alternative way of cooperation based on friendship, DIY (do it yourself) philosophy, empathy, solidarity and unselfishness. We are four completely different kids who are happy together although no-one knows why. Each of us is completely different and has a special place in our band, without which we, as a collective, couldnt exist. We dont have any frontman, we are just four different kids, who are screaming and hitting our instruments maybe just to feel alive. Come and ask or tell us whatever you want. Because its the reason, why we are doing this.